Our team at Morgan Creek Digital made an investment in BlockFi last year. The company has continued to grow at an impressive rate and is launching a new product today — the BlockFi Interest Account (BIA).
This new offering will allow anyone to deposit Bitcoin and Ether with BlockFi, while earning 6% annual interest. This is a big deal for a few reasons:
HIGH SECURITY — BlockFi will hold customer’s crypto with Gemini, one of the leading custody providers in the space. Gemini recently announced digital asset insurance coverage and the completion of its SOC 2 Type 1 security compliance review of its exchange and custodian platform.
HIGH YIELD — The interest rate compounds monthly, so BlockFi ends up paying customers 6.2% APY, which is the highest in the industry. Additionally, if you deposit Bitcoin, you are paid your interest payments in Bitcoin. If you deposit Ether, you are paid in Ether.
BlockFi’s goal is to create products that help cryptocurrency investors do more with their assets. They originally started with low cost USD loans, before expanding to offer these interest earning accounts.
The BIA product has been in private testing for a few weeks, with more than $10 million already deposited by retail and institutional customers. My expectation is that the number of deposits, along with total amount deposited, will quickly grow month-over-month. Simply, it is hard to beat 6.2% annual percentage yield for a deposit account.
If you’re interested in learning more or want to test out the product, you can visit https://blockfi.com/crypto-interest-account/.
-Pomp
The “Off The Chain” podcast has been downloaded 700,000+ times in 160 countries. You can listen to the latest episode with Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle here: Click here for Off The Chain podcast
THE RUNDOWN:
Crypto ‘Prime Broker’ Tagomi Raises $12 Million in Round Led by Paradigm: Tagomi, a startup that bills itself as crypto’s answer to Wall Street prime brokerages, has raised another $12 million in a funding round led by Paradigm. Other participants in the round announced Monday include Pantera Capital, Four Arrows and Multicoin Capital. Tagomi previously secured backing from Digital Currency Group, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Collaborative Fund and others. The firm has raised a total of $28 million to date. Read more.
Ridesharing App Lyft Partners With Blockchain Startup to Tokenize Healthcare Transport: Ridesharing app Lyft has partnered with blockchain startup Solve.Care to tokenize healthcare-related transport arrangements. Estonia-based Solve.Care is a decentralized, blockchain-powered platform that focuses on enhancing healthcare administration and access to healthcare services for users and insurers. The partnership with Lyft will allow Solve.Care users to schedule Lyft rides to doctors’ clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies, with automated payments using native utility token SOLVE via their Solve.Care digital wallets. Read more.
Crypto Isn't Disrupting Payments Yet But Stay Tuned, Ellis Says: “Why would I ever buy coffee with bitcoin?” MoffettNathanson analyst Lisa Ellis said. “As ludicrous as it may sound," the existential threat of cryptocurrency as a globally accepted, unbranded payment system that upends incumbents like Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and PayPal Holdings Inc. is worth watching but is unlikely to occur soon, Ellis wrote in a note to clients. Read more.
Crypto Payments Firm Circle Closes Acquisition of Crowdfunding Platform SeedInvest: Goldman Sachs-backed cryptocurrency finance firm Circle closed the acquisition of SeedInvest, a crowdfunding platform and registered operator of a broker-dealer. The deal will enable Circle to expand SeedInvest’s offerings to support cryptocurrencies, including fiat stablecoins and issuing and offering tokenized securities. Read more.
Tether to Launch New Version of USDT Stablecoin on Tron Blockchain: Tether is gearing up to launch its controversial stablecoin as a native token on the Tron blockchain. For the effort, Tether is partnering with the Tron Foundation to launch the dollar-pegged USDT stablecoin as a TRC-20 token. TRC-20 is a technical standard used by the Tron blockchain for implementing tokens, similar to and compatible with ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. The addition would allow users to more easily transact with decentralized applications (dapps) and protocols based on the Tron blockchain, the firms said. Read more.
PwC Blockchain Principal Grainne McNamara Moves to Rival EY: Grainne McNamara, formerly PwC’s blockchain principal, has moved to rival Big Four consulting firm EY. McNamara joined EY in February, after three years at PwC supervising the company’s work consulting clients on the digital transformation of their businesses, especially with blockchain technology. Before PwC, she worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as a managing director for more than 16 years, and was a partner at consulting firm Capco. Read more.
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